


Old Dog

by Jena Bartley (jenab)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-11-28
Updated: 2010-11-28
Packaged: 2017-10-13 10:41:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,670
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/136405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenab/pseuds/Jena%20Bartley
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Winchesters always ask for too much</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old Dog

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to Karaokegal for the beta.
> 
> Written for the Secret Lovers exchange on Team Free Love on LJ.

_Her heels clicked on the sidewalk as she hurried along. Through the steel and concrete buildings she could see the sun setting, darkness coming earlier every day as summer gave way to fall. Behind her she heard the sound of footsteps matching her pace._

 _She looked behind her, spotting the same man still following her as he had for the past several blocks. She’d seen him before in the shadows; dark clothes and a hoodie hiding his face. Today, he had fallen into step behind her when she left from work._

 _She’d left much later than she’d planned, finding the streets bare of people as rush hour had ended over an hour ago. There were no buildings she could take shelter in, no groups of conversing people she could join with until she’d lost the man._

 _Picking up her pace, she started turning blindly down streets, trying to escape only to hear the man pick up his pace. She could feel her heart pounding hard in her chest as she glanced over her shoulder to find him closer. She opened her mouth to scream as he lunged, closing the distance._

 _He slammed her against a wall, her need to fight back stopping at the feel of the cold edge of a knife pressed against her throat. She froze, breathing hard as she stared into the darkness of the man’s hood. Time seemed to slow until there was only the feel of brick poking into her back, the heat of the man’s body against hers and the sharp edge of a blade against her throat, digging deep enough to break her skin, a trickle of blood traveling down her neck._

A snap of fingers and time stopped. Gabriel stepped out of the shadows, staring at the scene before him. The beads of blood showed starkly against the pale skin of his silacrumn, her eyes wide with fear and spots of sweat showing under her arms. The man’s grin was feral, the lust and violence clear to Gabriel’s sight.

He’d spent months setting up the trick, creating the perfect victim and getting her to attract the attention of this animal. The man had a history of killing women, drawing out their terror as he slowly took their lives. Gabriel was going to have his creation turn on him, meting out the same terror to him before he was killed. In the morning, the police would find the man with no evidence of who killed him. Justice served Trickster style. Not one of his flashier or more crazy pranks, but the intent was the same.

All he had to do was start time again. No one else would know what had happened. Not the police, not even the Winchesters.

He raised his fingers to snap, seeing tired eyes staring back at him over a diner table rather than the alleyway. Heard only Dean and Sam’s conditions for joining them in the fight to stop the Apocalypse. He could keep pulling his tricks and deliver justice but he couldn’t kill anymore.

What right had the Winchesters to demand that from him? He was the Archangel of Judgement. This is what he did; what he had been made for.

The Winchesters were barely keeping it together and needed all the allies and help they could get. The war was taking a toll on them. Gabriel had seen it in the deepening lines of their faces, the way shadows had become permanent under their eyes. Their clothes were starting to hang off their bodies, especially Sam, who was even more pale and thin than Dean, with bloodshot eyes. Gabriel watched Sam’s hands shake as he stirred sugar into his coffee, still suffering the effects of detoxing from demon blood.

Both brothers had pushed their food around on their plate, Dean going so far as pushing aside an excellent tasting pie. Even Castiel had appeared worn down and shadowed, his encounter with Famine leaving its mark deep within the angel in a way that shouldn’t have been possible in one of his brothers. They’d listened to his offer to join them, suspicion clear in their eyes over his motives. Not that he could blame them after his last attempt to convince them to fulfill their destiny.

Instead, they’d dug their heels in harder, unwittingly making Gabriel respect them even though he knew their efforts were in vain. That all changed the first time he encountered Death’s handiwork in a town Gabriel loved to frequent. Its Fall Fair drew him every year, with the old woman who made taffy that melted in Gabriel’s mouth and her granddaughter who smiled shyly at Gabriel as she sold him the taffy.

This time the midway was in ruins, the ferris wheel lying on its side. Houses and buildings had been torn up from the worst tornado seen in the town’s history. The dead and dying lay strewn in the streets, the stench of death rising to fill Gabriel’s nose. The wails of the living and their cries for his father tore through Gabriel.

Seeing the devastation, watching a little boy crying in the street outside of his shattered home, finally forced him to confront the reality of Heaven’s drive for Paradise. He’d always loved humanity with all of their flaws and creativity. Now, he was faced with the horrifying knowledge that between Heaven and Hell, so many humans would be lost.

It led him to a rundown diner on one of the back roads of America to the brothers who may be stubborn enough to actually stop it. It also led to him agreeing to their ridiculous terms of not killing anyone in his pranks. He’d seen it in their eyes that they would refuse his help unless he met their conditions. Winchester stupidity at its best but Gabriel was indulging them this time, only for the sake of the rest of humanity.

At first it had been easy. Not all of his tricks ended in death. Where was the fun in that? His victims had to learn from their mistakes. But there were those who deserved death for how they preyed on others and the horror they inflicted. This man deserved death. What he had done to the previous women did not warrant life in a human jail. He had to die at the hands of the Angel of Judgement.

Though the Winchesters might never know if he kept his word Gabriel would know he hadn’t. And he was tired of lying and hiding from himself after all these centuries.

He snapped his fingers and time resumed. The monster in human form took his pleasure in Gabriel’s simulation as Gabriel turned his back on him.

The motel room was standard Winchester fare. Rundown, crappy decor with years of dust and grime embedded into everything. The smell of mold mixed with the stale scent of sex and sweat. Gabriel stood beside the bed, watching Sam sleep.

Dark hair fell over his face, obscuring his features from Gabriel. The covers had been pushed down to leave Sam bare to the cool night air. In the dark, Gabriel could clearly see the marks he’d left on Sam’s skin, old and new. Sam shifted, the sheet slipping lower to show the line of his hipbones that Gabriel had traced earlier with his mouth and hands.

Gabriel didn’t make a sound but Sam opened his eyes, sleep fading quickly as he reached under the pillow for his knife. The mark of a true hunter, able to leave sleep quickly at the slightest change, anticipating the shadows coming to attack him. .

“Gabriel?” Sam squinted in the darkness at him.

“Who am I, Sam?”

Sam sat up, shifting to sit on the edge of the bed, the sheet wrapped around him to protect his modestly, not that Gabriel hadn’t seen everything already. Sam reached to turn on the lamp by the bedside, eyes blinking in the sudden light.

“What’s wrong, Gabriel?”

“Just answer the question. Who am I?”

Sam looked at him, for quite a long time. Gabriel held his gaze, emotions roiling through him. He resisted the urge to take a peak into Sam’s mind.

“You’re an Archangel and God’s Messenger. You’re also the Trickster Loki. When you got tired of the fighting, you ran from your family and hid for centuries. You’re now taking a stand and you are my ally along with my friend.

“I’m also the Angel of Death, Sam. The one God sent to earth to wreak his anger and vengeance upon humans and angels. I’m the one who killed the Nephillim. I started the Flood that wiped the Earth clean, leaving only Noah and his family alive. I’m the one who walked in Egypt that night when Moses fought to bring his people out of slavery. I killed all of the Firstborn, boys and girls. Young and old.”

“Gabriel...”

Gabriel held up a hand, “I am a killer, Sam. That is what I was created for by Father. To be his hand of vengeance. I bring His message not only in words to Mary but also in blood to the Egyptians and all those who would defy and turn their backs on God.”  
“You are not just a killer, Gabriel.”

The conviction and belief in Sam’s voice made Gabriel laugh, an ugly sound. “Yes, I am.”

Sam stood up, letting the sheet drop as he walked towards Gabriel. Gabriel couldn’t look away from that nakedness on display, remembering tasting that flesh. What was it about this human that drew Gabriel to him time after time since they first met.

Sam reached out to cup Gabriel’s cheek, Gabriel flinched, stepping back to leave Sam’s hand hovering in the air between them.

Sam let his hand drop, his eyes full of compassion and something else close to understanding which Gabriel couldn’t fathom.

Gabriel snapped his fingers, unable to stay and listen to Sam tell him how Gabriel wasn’t really a killer when Gabriel knew so much better than Sam.

He did what he did best, what he always did. He ran. Not stopping until he stood in the middle of a sandstorm in the Sahara desert. The miles of dunes were lost in the sand stirred up by the winds, blocking out the landscape. Gabriel turned his face into the wind, sand pelting him as he let the pain of it slip through his barriers to mar his human shell.

A rustle of wings alerted him to Castiel’s presence. Gabriel could only mourn at how weakened Castiel had become as he felt Castiel’s fading Grace brush against his. Yet, for his current state, Castiel was still stronger in some ways than Gabriel.

Castiel stood at his shoulder, the wind slowly dying down around them leaving quiet behind. The silence of the desert seeped into Gabriel, not quite easing his turmoil.

“They ask much of us.” Castiel said quietly, starting out over the landscape. “Sometimes too much. They ask us to change the very nature of ourselves.”

Gabriel’s hands curled into fists. “I have been what I am since Father created me. How can they think to even ask me to change that?”

Castiel turned his head toward him, blue eyes seeming to look deep inside Gabriel. “I was a soldier, the historian and tactician of my garrison. I followed my orders willingly and fully as God had commanded me since He made me. I have never questioned that until Dean. And now I find myself outcast and cut off from Heaven, not yet Fallen. I’ve died and been raised up by our Father. I am not what I once was and still question that I’m on the right path.”

He reached out to clasp Gabriel’s shoulder. “I fear what I will become on this journey but I have also learned more about myself than I had ever expected. You may be more than you know, Gabriel.”

“What am I if not what I was made for, Castiel?”

Castiel tightened his hand. “We will find out together, brother.”

They stood together for a long time, both lost in their thoughts and of the humans who held such power over them.

Gabriel returned to motel room, just as the sky lighted. He found the sheets pushed back and Sam’s duffle bag gone, with his laptop was still on the table. Gabriel reached out his senses for Sam, homing in on the sigils he’d added to Castiel’s to let him track both brothers. He found Sam in the laundromat, slouched down in a chair as he watched his clothes spin in the dryer in front of him.

Gabriel sat down beside him in the hard plastic chair.

“What do you see when you look at me, Gabriel?” Sam didn’t take his eyes off the machine as he asked him the same question Gabriel had asked last night.

Gabriel turned his head enough to see Sam’s profile. He remained quiet for a long time, Sam content to just sit and wait.

“I see you, Sam. Your stubbornness and strength. Your loyalty and love for Dean alongside your determination to do right and make up for your past mistakes. I see a darkness marring your soul but I also see just how bright your soul still is despite that darkness.”

Sam turned to meet his gaze. “When I first met Castiel and Uriel, they all saw me as an abomination, the human with the demon blood. For the longest time and even now I see myself as a freak and maybe a monster.” He held up his hand when Gabriel would have spoken.

“I did some horrible things and let Lucifer out of his cage. But that was all me and not because I have demon blood inside me. When my visions started happening, I kept thinking that I was a freak and would turn into the monsters Dean and I hunted. Hell, even Dad made Dean promise to kill me if I became one.”

Gabriel gritted his teeth, forcing himself to keep silent as Sam went on.

“I’m Lucifer’s vessel and I have demon blood inside me but that is only part of me. It doesn’t fully define who I am. It’s still up to me to make the right choices. Just as you’re not only the Angel of Death or Loki, Gabriel. Those are large parts of who you are but not all of you.

“When I look at you I see the Trickster that tormented Dean and I over and over just to teach us a lesson. I also see the similarities between us. We both ran away from our families because we were tired of the fighting. We’re trying to do something right and make up for our past mistakes.”

Sam leaned over, brushing his lips against Gabriel’s cheek. Gabriel shivered.

“I don’t know who I am beyond this.” Gabriel gestured to himself. “Will you even like me at the end of all this? Will I even like what I am?”

Sam laced his fingers through Gabriel’s. “What do you have to lose, Gabriel?”

Gabriel looked down at their entwined fingers and wondered.

Two weeks later he stood in a familiar alleyway, watching as the human monster pin his victim against wall. Gabriel took a deep breath as the man cut into the woman, her screams muffled behind his hand.

He snapped his fingers, hearing the sounds of boots on the cement, their speed increasing as they neared him. Two policemen came around the corner as the man knelt over his victim.

It wasn’t as satisfying as killing the monster himself, but the man would be in jail for the rest of his life, caught in the act by the police. He stayed long enough to watch as the man was handcuffed and shoved into the back of a police car before he left.

He was the Angel of Death and the Trickster. He was also Sam’s... lover.

Maybe it was time for him to find out who he was beyond all of that.


End file.
